I am trying to teach myself how to read sheet music. I looked up the sheet music for Stars by Dan Fogelberg. It’s a guitar piece but I searched for piano score. Idk what all the dotted capital I’s are that are residing where I expect notes to be.
I am trying to teach myself how to read sheet music. I looked up the sheet music for Stars by Dan Fogelberg. It’s a guitar piece but I searched for piano score. Idk what all the dotted capital I’s are that are residing where I expect notes to be.
Excellent advice and I thank you. Sorry for the late reply, see my recent response to UrsineApathy. ‘Perfect practice makes perfect’ is what our choir teacher told us almost 50 years ago. He said Don’t practice it wrong! I thank you for the book suggestions. Having some likely undiagnosed letters, I am loathe to spend money on something that doesn’t eli5 the way I need it. I’m also on meager subsistence, so I gravitate towards free videos. When I look up sheet music for old songs, I am not looking to master those songs. Just trying to get an idea of the notes used so I can play around with it.
I bought a cheap electric 88 weighted electronic hammer action keyboard from Amazon. AODSK. It has a metronome and a bunch of other functions that were not clearly explained in the instructions. I know how to turn the metronome on, but not how to change the pace. I’ve had it 6 months and have practiced something every day, so I feel my finger strength is getting better. My next task is to figure out why the MIDI Cable is not carrying the sound of the video from the new Lenovo Yoga, to the headset through the mixer. It worked on the old laptop. Thank you for you kindness.
I’m glad you’re able to get into music! And you are right, perfect practice makes perfect is the distilled version of what I was saying. You want to make sure any practice session you have has a goal. And it can be reading music you alteady have on hand, I just fear that if the fundamentals aren’t practiced then it will lead to difficulties later down the road.
You can still have some fun with music notes and playing by ear. You can learn some scales, even a blues scale, and boom you can do some fun improv. There are YouTube videos with backing tracks in a certain key where you can improv over them.
I am also guilty of not practicing well, I often just “noodle” around and play songs or play around. That’s fine, but ideally it would be only one part of practice. Ideally I’d spend the beginning working on perfecting, over time, those fundamentals. I try to split my practice up into those two sections when I am feeling more disciplined. I am not as good as wish I was, but playing music is one of my few joys. I don’t have to play well to be happy doing it - but it makes me feel accomplished when I can notice I’ve made (slow) improvement.
Whether its a book, a video on YouTube, etc. as long as the practice sessions have a goal, structure, and intention then it’ll build up with time. I suggested a book since that gives you the structure, and introduces concepts as they’re needed, but a good YouTube series can provide that too. I dont play keyboards (wish I did) so I cant give much more specifics there. if you can’t get the metronome to work on the keyboard you can always find an app or even website. But I hope you keep at it, have fun, and one day I’ll find you jamming on YouTube or Spotify.